Schwitzgebel Genealogy (and more)

Lineage of Robert Varner Endicott

by Michael Schwitzgebel and Cheryl Endicott Schwitzgebel

SYNOPSIS
Reasoning behind our current theory linking Robert Varner Endicott to Governor Endicott's line, via Joseph N. Endicott and Rachel E. Keese.
INTRODUCTION
Our search for Robert Varner Endicott began with a name and birthplace listed on his son's birth certificate. Multiple marriages among some of the primary subjects, a tendency to not stay in one place for long, and the ever-frustrating missing 1890 census have made solid evidence difficult to come by; however, we believe that the evidence we have accumulated is significant enough to be worth detailing for the consideration of other researchers.
EXPOSITION
Robert Varner Endicott was born 24 December, 1891, in Gum Springs, Arkansas.20,21 There are Gum Springs at multiple locations in Arkansas, but Robert was most likely born in Pulaski Co., as his mother had Keese relatives living in North Little Rock, Pulaski Co.

At the time of the birth of his son, Charles Lee, Robert was 19 years old and living in Joplin, Jasper Co., Missouri; his wife, Lucy, was 18 and living in Bonne Terre, St. Francois Co., Missouri. By this time, the young couple had already had another son, Edward Robert, born the previous year.

Robert V. Endicott and Lucy Haggard, both of Bonne Terre, St. Francois Co., Missouri, were married on 5 August, 1909, in Potosi, Washington Co., Missouri, by W.A. Cooper, Justice of the Peace.2 The record of this marriage shows that Robert was over 21 and Lucy was over 18, but evidence from other sources,3 suggests that they were closer to 17 at the time, and that the JP was either deceived or negligent. It also appears that theirs was a double wedding. On the same date and on the same page of the Washington Co. wedding book is an entry recording the marriage of Susie Haggard, of Bonne Terre, to Henry Hodge, of Irondale, Washington Co. Susie is listed as over 18, but since she was 4 years younger than her half sister, Lucy,3 this is also in error. Henry is listed as over 21, but we don't know enough about him to say whether this was true, or not.2

MOTHER AND SONS ABANDONED

Family lore has it that he abandoned Lucy while their two sons were very young, and we have certainly found no sign of him in subsequent censuses. However, he is known to have worked the lead and zinc mines of Ottawa Co., Oklahoma, along with his brother, Edward. He appears to have maintained some contact with his sons, Charles and Edward, as there are signs of their having lived with him in Oklahoma at least part of the time. Robert remarried, on 5 October, 1915, to Georgia A. Kenney,22 but this marriage didn't last long, as his new bride died 8 November, 1916, of blood poisoning.23 He married at least a third time, per his obituary, which states that he was survived by his wife, Sybil. Robert died 28 February, 1929, in Commerce, Ottawa Co., Oklahoma, and is buried in Webb City cemetery, Webb City, Jasper Co., Missouri.20,23

Robert's first wife Lucy is a bit of a puzzle. We find women named Lucy, of comparable age, with sons named Charles L. and Robert E. (or Edward R.) Endicott, in both the 1920 and 1930 census enumerations, but neither woman's surname is Endicott. In the 1920 census,4 Lucy shows up as the wife of Charles W. Scott. In the 1930 enumeration,5 she's Lucy Schultz, single parent head of household. Lucy and the two boys are among 5 families living at 4150 McPherson St, which suggests that the address was an apartment building. Oddly, she is shown to be married, despite there being no husband in evidence. Of particular interest is the field that lists her age at first marriage as 17, which is how old Lucy Haggard was when she married Robert V. Endicott.

If the people in these enumerations are Lucy (Haggard) Endicott and her two sons, as we believe, and if she really did remarry, first to a Scott and then to a Schultz, then why is the name on her death certificate6 Lucy Endicott? It's a mystery, and since our attempts to find Robert V. Endicott going forward in time have hit a brick wall, we go back.

THE ARKANSAS CONNECTION

As we started looking for Robert V. Endicott and his parents, the only clues we had to go on were his approximate birth year and that he was born in Arkansas.1 Web searches turned up Joseph N. Endicott, 22, and Rachel E. Keese, 21, who were married 23 September, 1883, in Demun Twp., Randolph Co., Arkansas.7

This was encouraging, but because Robert V. Endicott was born around 1891, the 1900 census was the first in which we might expect to link Joseph, Rachel, and Robert as a family. We searched the 1900 census in Randolph and its neighboring counties but came up empty-handed. The only other clue that the couple might have been in Randolph Co. during this time is the presence of a Joseph Endicott on the 1890 tax rolls for Davidson Twp., Randolph Co., Arkansas,8 but this doesn't help much; there's no way of knowing whether this is the same Joseph Endicott, or not.

SERENDIPITY AND THE 'SHOW ME' STATE

It seemed we were stuck again, with nothing to show for our efforts but a marriage that could mean something but couldn't really be linked to any other information we had. What we'd found did give us some new directions to pursue, though, so we searched the web for places where other researchers might have posted information about the people we were looking for. In this case, we ended up contacting a Keese researcher who told us about a Louis E. Endicott she had found in the 1900 census for Butler Co., Missouri,16 living in the household of his grandmother Sarah Jane Keese (neé Cooley). She also pointed us to the 1880 census for St. Clair Co., Illinois,9 where Rachel Keese is enumerated in the household of W.V. and Sarah Keese. Louis had been born July 1885, a few years after the 1883 marriage of Joseph N. Endicott and Rachel E. Keese, and we began to wonder if he might be their son. One problem is that the 1900 census shows that Louis was born in Missouri, not Arkansas; another is that Rachel is born about 1864 in the 1880 census, instead of 1862, as is the Rachel E. Keese in the Arkansas marriage record. Still, we were intrigued by the possibilities.

Meanwhile, we continued to scour the 1900 and 1910 censuses for signs of Robert V. Endicott and his parents. First, we found a Robert Endicott and his sister, Sadie (or Sarie) J. Endicott living in the household of their stepfather, John Thomure, and his wife, Rachel.10 In this enumeration, Robert's age and birthplace are consistent with Robert V. Endicott's. Rachel's age is consistent with that of the Rachel E. Keese from the Arkansas marriage, and her birthplace (Illinois) is consistent with the Rachel Keese from the 1880 census.

Also in this 1910 enumeration is another stepson, 6-year-old John Harper, which provided us another surname to look out for, in the 1900 census. Sure enough, in the 1900 census, we found John R. Harper, his wife, Rachel E. Harper, and their children, Robert V. and Sarah J.11 Despite Sadie showing up here as Sarah, her age is consistent, as are those of Rachel and Robert. Birthplaces of their parents also remain consistent, with Rachel's parents being born in Ohio (as in the 1880 enumeration9), and both Sarah and Robert's mother and father being born in Illinois and Indiana, respectively. We also found the similarity between the names of Sarah J., Rachel's daughter, and the name of Rachel E. Keese's mother, Sarah J., to be a very interesting coincidence. And what about the fact that we found Rachel, Robert, and Sarah in Butler Co. at the same time as the woman we suspected to be mother was living in Butler Co. with her grandson, Louis E. Endicott, in her household?

As further proof that the Rachel E. Harper from the 1900 census is the same woman who married Joseph N. Endicott, we offer a 6 May, 1897, Butler Co., Missouri, divorce judgment against Rachel E. Endicott and for Joseph N.17 Endicott. Close on the heels of this event comes the marriage between John R. Harper and Rachel E. Endicott, recorded in Butler Co., Missouri, marriage book F on 23 May, 1897.14 Their marriage license application15 lists Rachel's age as 36 and John's as 33, which are consistent with John and Rachel's ages in the 1900 census. Both resided in Poplar Bluff.

By now, we were feeling pretty confident we'd found Robert V. Endicott and that his mother was Rachel E. Keese, despite the circumstantial nature of much of the evidence.

As a footnote, it should be mentioned that Rachel appears to have had another husband after her marriage to John Thomure . The 1920 Butler Co., Missouri, census shows Rachel May , age 57 and born in Illinois, as head of a household that includes John R. Harper (son, age 16, born in Missouri), Kate Keese (sister, age 70, born in Ohio), and Sadie Pump (daughter, age 25, born in Missouri).18 Since Rachel had a son named John Harper, a daughter named Sadie, and a sister named Kate Keese (despite an age mismatch from previous enumerations in which she appears), we went looking in the Butler Co. marriage indexes.19 There, we found a 9 October, 1916 marriage between George May and Rachel Thomure. Although we find no record of a marriage between Sadie/Sarah Endicott and anyone named Pump, her husband may have been Henry Pump, a boarder listed in the Thomure household at the time of the 1910 census enumeration.10

BUT WHAT ABOUT JOSEPH N. ENDICOTT?

Since the more difficult problem seemed to be tracking down Robert V. Endicott's mother and establishing a link to the Joseph Endicott/Rachel Keese marriage, we really hadn't put much effort into finding out about his father. Working under the cautious assumption that we'd found the right Robert and his mother, we started looking for Joseph N. Endicotts who were born in Indiana.

As it turns out, there's a lot of them. The one who appears to be a match for the Joseph who married Rachel E. Keese is a son of Martin Endicott, who was born about 1841 in Indiana. In the 1870 and 1880 censuses,12,13 this Joseph N. Endicott was born about 1861 in Indiana. In 1870, Martin's wife was Jane; in 1880, she was Sachie.

We've found a number of genealogies posted on the internet that show this Martin to be Martin Van Buren Endicott, Jane to be Martha Jane Williams Smiley, and Sachie to be Sachonsia Porter, Martin's second wife. To name one of these, the pages at http://mcclure.freeservers.com/jnaendi.htm show Martin to be a son of Joseph N. Endicott and Elizabeth Varner (as in Robert Varner Endicott, perhaps?) and list quite a bit of the ancestry back from there. Once we're convinced of Robert V. Endicott's connection to this line, we'll be contacting these researchers to see about obtaining their source lists.

Sources:
  1. Birth record: Charles Lee Endicott. Certificate no. 53014 (1911), Bureau of Vital Statistics, Jefferson, Missouri.
  2. Marriage record abstracts at www.vienici.com: Robert V. Endicott/Lucy Haggard and Henry Hodge/Susie Haggard, Washington Co., page 302.
  3. Birth record: Lucy Haggard. Certificate no. 442984 (1891), Division of Health of Missouri.
    Note: Lucy appears as Mathews in the 1900 census, but in all later sources, her maiden name is Haggard. We believe her birth father was a Mathews and that she was adopted by her mother's third husband, Benjamin Haggard, some time after 1900.
  4. 1920 U.S. Federal Census, Missouri, City of St. Louis, Ward 20, E.D. 393, Sheet 2B, Line 79.
  5. 1930 US Federal Census, Missouri, City of St. Louis, Ward 17, E.D. 96, Sheet 12B, Line 71.
  6. Death Record: Lucy Endicott. Death certificate no. 027225 (1980), Department of Social Services, Missouri Division of Health, Jefferson, Missouri.
  7. Marriage Record: Joseph N. Endicott and Rachel E. Keese. Book 6, Page 129. (Randolph Co., Arkansas)
  8. Randolph Co. Pages of Interest. 1890 substitute census, reconstructed from Randolph Co., Arkansas, tax rolls.
  9. 1880 US Federal Census, Illinois, St. Clair Co., E.D. 41, Sheet 215A, Line 11.
  10. 1910 US Federal Census, Missouri, St. Francois Co., Perry Twp., E.D. 81, Sheet 23B, Line 91.
  11. 1900 US Federal Census, Missouri, St. Francois Co., Perry Twp., E.D. 95, Sheet 113B, Line 21.
  12. 1880 US Federal Census, Illinois, Gallatin Co., New Market Precinct, E.D. 19, Sheet 512B, Line 19.
  13. 1870 US Federal Census, Illinois, Franklin Co., Township 5, Range 3, Page 6, Line 27.
  14. Butler county Missouri, Marriage Book F-July 23rd 1890-December 23rd 1897. Butler Co., Missouri, Genweb
  15. Butler Co. MO Marriage Application Book 6, Page 201-300 at Butler Co., Missouri, Genweb. Page 299
  16. 1900 US Federal Census, Missouri, Butler Co., Beaver Dam Twp., Sheet 35A, Line 28

  17. Butler County, Missouri Divorces Book 5, 1883-1898, Book N370. Reported in Area Footprints, Vol XXIX, #2, (Nov 2003) by The Genealogical Society of Butler Co at Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

    Note: The photocopy of the actual record to which this abstract refers does not show a divorce judgment; rather it documents a dismissal of divorce proceedings. The clerk at Butler County (Missouri) Circuit Court Division I notes "I searched up to 1905 but could not find a divorce." Never the less, Rachel Endicott did marry John R. Harper later in 1897, so it is probably safe to proceed under the assumption that the dissolution of the marriage to Joseph Endicott was accomplished in some way.

  18. 1920 US Federal Census, Missouri, Butler Co., E.D. 12, Poplar Bluff., Sheet 3A, Line 22.
  19. Butler county Missouri, Marriage Book N - 1914-1918. Butler Co., Missouri, Genweb. Page 300.
  20. Robert Varner Endicott, death certificate no. 72 (1929), Oklahoma State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
  21. Robert Varner Endicott: Ancestry.com. World War I Selective Service Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. [database online] Provo, UT: Ancestry.com. 2002. Original source: World War I Selective Service Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. M1509, 20,243 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration.
  22. Robert V. Endicott obituary, Joplin Globe , Joplin, Missouri, 1 March, 1929. Courtesy of Ed Gooden.
  23. Photocopied page from burial index of Webb City cemetery, Jasper Co., Missouri. Page 22. Courtesy of Ed Gooden.

If you have any related (no pun intended) information, please about it.

Return to Mike Schwitzgebel's Genealogy home page